A word-spotting task is used in Spanish to test the way in which polysyllabic letter-strings are parsed in this language. Monosyllabic words (e.g., "bar") embedded at the beginning of a pseudoword were immediately followed by either a coda-forming consonant (e.g., "barto") or a vowel (e.g., "baros"). In the former…

Purpose: Subjective speech intelligibility assessment is often preferred over more objective approaches that rely on transcript scoring. This is, in part, because of the intensive manual labor associated with extracting objective metrics from transcribed speech. In this study, we propose an automated approach for scoring transcripts that provides…

ESL students view the teaching of pronunciation as an important part of their English language education and state they need assistance in this area (Willing, 1988). In corroborating this point, Munro & Derwing (2006) add that research has shown that pronunciation is given relatively little attention in the ESL classroom. Although many ESL…

We examine the ability of supervised text classification models to identify several discourse properties from teachers' speech with an eye for providing teachers with meaningful automated feedback about the quality of their classroom discourse. We collected audio recordings from 28 teachers from 10 schools in 164 authentic classroom sessions,…

Studies on the acquisition of Spanish as a first language do not agree on the patterns and factors relevant for coda development. In order to shed light on the questions involved, a longitudinal study of coda development in Northern European Spanish was carried out to explore the relationship between accuracy, markedness and frequency. The study…

We investigated the processing of ambiguous double-PP constructions in Hebrew. Selection restrictions forced the first prepositional phrase (PP1) to attach low, but PP2 could attach maximally high to VP or maximally low to the NP inside PP1. A length contrast in PP2 was also examined. This construction affords more potential locations for prosodic…

Though research has shown that rhythmic training is beneficial for phonological speech processing, little empirical work has been carried out to assess whether rhythmic training in the classroom can help to improve pronunciation in a second language. This study tests the potential benefits of hand-clapping to the rhythm of newly learned French…

This study was designed to examine the independent contribution of prosodic sensitivity--the rhythmic patterning of speech-to word reading and spelling in a sample of early readers. Ninety-three English-speaking children aged 5-6 years old (M = 69.28 months, SD = 3.67) were assessed for their prosodic sensitivity, vocabulary knowledge,…

This dissertation is concerned with how elliptical sentences are generated. To be specific, I investigate when and in what module ellipsis occurs, and what is elided as a result of ellipsis. With regard to the first research question, I propose that XP ellipsis occurs as soon as all the featural requirements of the licensor of XP ellipsis are…

Compound surnames in Japanese show complex phonological patterns, which pose challenges to current theories of phonology. This dissertation proposes an account of the segmental and prosodic issues in Japanese surnames and discusses their theoretical implications. Like regular compound words, compound surnames may undergo a sound alternation known…

The traditional focus of English phonetic teaching in China has consistently been on the segmental acquisition, which is mainly highlighting the pronunciation of vowels and consonants, while its suprasegmental knowledge in speech naturalness, coherence and understanding is relatively insufficient. In addition, Chinese students have a serious…

Although several measures are available for monitoring kindergarten reading progress, little research has directly compared them to determine which are superior in predicting year-end reading skills relative to other measures, and how validity may change across the school year as reading skills develop. A sample of 426 kindergarten students who…

This study explores the use of F0, intensity and duration in the production of two types of prominences in French: primary accent with duration as the main acoustic cue, and secondary accent with F0 and intensity as acoustic cues. These parameters were studied in 13 children using a cochlear implant (CI) and 17 children with a normal hearing (NH),…

The main purpose of this study is to explore and examine an early bilingual child whose use of English might be different on the account of the context the child uses English. Specifically, it was sought to find out if the child resorted to different phonological varieties as well as different interaction patterns while communicating. The relevant…

The present study aimed to determine the effect of teaching prosody through visual feedback activities on oral reading skills of Turkish language learners. The quantitative dimension of the study utilized a single group pre-test post-test experimental design, whereas, the qualitative dimension consisted of the data obtained from the interviews.…